The Monthly

More than 2.4 million women and girls are living on a low income with feminine hygiene products being listed as one of the "top three material costs of being a woman". We helped Shoppers Drug Mart and John St. build a feminine hygiene product dispenser to assist homeless and low income women.

Newspaper boxes were repurposed to discreetly assist in supporting women's health. The boxes were rebuilt with a code-locked drawer that would dispense boxes of tampons. The code was then given to local shelters and outreach programs to distribute.

The features include:

• Battery operation
• Low-temperature resistant LCD display
• Vandalism resistant piezoelectric keypad
• SMS communication for low-battery or low-stock notifications

The awards include:

• 2018 Advertising & Design Club of Canada: Advertising, Direct (Gold)
• 2018 Advertising & Design Club of Canada: Advertising, Experiential (Silver)

We proudly worked with Shoppers Drug Mart, John St., Paus and Sixpenny

Fire Burns Up was committed to ongoing maintenance of the boxes; we even replaced a damaged component in -17°C! We're forever grateful to our fabrication partners for inviting us to work on this and for all the extra time and support that went into the project; there were many maintenance visits that are often unacknowledged.

This project is no longer in market, but has made way for more progressive attitudes regarding period poverty.